This invention broadly relates to packaging materials, and more particularly, it concerns a composite, double component, paper based packaging material, especially useful for packaging food products.
Although this specification should be understood as requiring no restrictive limitations on the use of the disclosed packaging materials, materials produced according to the invention have been found to be particularly useful in the field of packaging materials for the retail sale of food products, particularly single piece and discrete products, such as bacon, cheese, meats, dairy products and like.
As is well known, as a consequence of established general practices, and in order to comply with the increasingly more restrictive and binding hygienical regulations, food products offered for retail sale to the public often are packaged in wrappings consisting of sheets of paper based material that are wrapped around the product. Packaging using paper based packaging material must fulfill well established hygiene and safety requirements. Therefore, it has been for a certain time, and presently it is still, an accepted general practice to use composite wrappings comprising a paper based sheet, intended not to contact the food product, together with a thin film of a plastic material, as a food wrapping material. Such a composite wrapping complies with the legal hygiene and use safety regulations and requirements.
Such wrappings, however, have at least one deficiency. In fact, when aiming at preventing the concerned food product from contacting the external paper based material during the wrapping operation (which very often entails a rolling of the paper based material together with the food product contained therein, which often consists of a number of thin wafers), it is a common practice to use a second sheet of plastic material to directly cover the concerned food product. In this manner, even if the packaging material is to be very tightly wrapped, the concerned food product is always insulated and separated from the external paper based layer.
Even if it is certainly efficient, this approach always entails use of two materials of different kinds, with the consequent problems of storage, inventory, separate housing compartments and like. Furthermore, the handling of the materials entails an increased risk of contamination of the surfaces contacting the concerned food product.